“O Come All Ye Faithful” is translated from “Adeste Fideles“, a hymn tune. The text itself has unclear beginnings, and may have been written in the 13th century by John of Reading, though it has been concluded that John Francis Wade was probably the author.

Before the emergence of John Francis Wade as the probable composer, the tune had been purported to be written by several musicians, from John Reading and his son to Handel and even Gluck, including the Portuguese composers Marcos Portugal or the king John IV of Portugal himself. Thomas Arne, whom Wade knew, is another possible composer. There are several similar musical themes written around that time, though it can be hard to determine whether these were written in imitation of the hymn, the hymn was based on them, or they are totally unconnected.

The earliest existing manuscript shows both words and tune. John Francis Wade included it in his own publication of Cantus Diversi (1751). It was published again in the 1760 edition of Evening Offices of the Church. It also appeared in Samuel Webbe’s An Essay on the Church Plaint Chan (1782).

The original four verses of the hymn were extended to a total of eight, and these have been translated into many languages. The English translation of “O Come, All Ye Faithful“, by the English Catholic priest, Frederick Oakeleyis widespread in most English speaking countries.

The original text has been from time to time attributed to various groups and individuals, including St. Bonaventure in the 13th century or King John IV of Portugal in the 17th, though it was more commonly believed that the text was written by an order of monks, the Cistercian, German, Portuguese and Spanish orders having, at various times, been given credit.

The original text consisted of four Latin verses, and it was with these that the hymn was originally published. The Abbé Étienne Jean François Borderies wrote an additional three verses in the 18th century; these are normally printed as the third to fifth of seven verses, while another, anonymous, additional Latin verse is rarely printed. The text has been translated innumerable times, but the most used version today is the English “O Come, All Ye Faithful”. This is a combination of one of Frederick Oakeley’s translations of the original four verses and William Thomas Brooke’s of the three additional ones, which was first published in Murray’s Hymnal in 1852. Oakeley originally titled the song “Ye Faithful, approach ye” when it was sung at his Margaret Church in Marylebone before it was altered to its current form.

The most commonly named Portuguese author is King John IV of Portugal. “The Musician King” (1604–1656, came to the throne in 1640) was a patron of music and the arts, and a considerably sophisticated writer on music; in addition, he was a composer, and during his reign he collected one of the largest libraries in the world (destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755). The first part of his musical work was published in 1649. He founded a Music School in Vila Viçosa that “exported” musicians to Spain and Italy and it was there at his Vila Viçosa palace that the two manuscripts of the “Portuguese Hymn” have been found. Those manuscripts (1640) predate Wade’s eighteenth-century manuscript. Among the King’s writings is a Defense of Modern Music (Lisbon, 1649). In the same year (1649) he had a huge struggle to get instrumental music approved by the Vatican for use in the Catholic Church. His other famous composition is a setting of the Crux fidelis, a work that remains highly popular during Lent amongst church choirs.

By The Three Tenors

Lyrics